Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

Lovely but hard-headed Mary Pickford was something special, both at the time for the entertainment and now for the historical perspective. Out of the films I've seen of hers I always preferred Rebecca, even over Pollyanna, the story seemed more cogent, the acting by everyone more believable and the languid Victorian atmosphere more palpable. And at 25 she still believably played a teenager.

We're presented with a series of comic episodes in the life of poor young girl Rebecca Rowena Randall, sent to live with her well-to-do aunts and get a proper ejjication. She goes from selling Superba Soap door to door, reciting her unique poetry for Visitors Day at school to organising a Circus Parade and Show and then going to boarding school. On the way she manages to help various people in trouble in her own understated way and also falls in love and fixes on the man to marry - after she becomes a woman. The most violent scene is when Rebecca pulls Minnie Smellie's nose in class. With some lovely evocative olde worlde touches, especially in the storm scene we are eventually (horse) drawn to an appropriate sunbeam ending.

Most people would disdain to clap their modern eyes on this, but that's their loss. A nice little film to sink into every few years and ruminate on how the world has changed.